This will be a site to record my thoughts and musings as they occur. A 'vanity' blog or website. Postings will be sporadic as the nature of this site is not a conversation with others, but a monolog to help me in troubled times.
To Those who find good ideas, they are free for theft so long as attribution is given. They are to be *built upon* not used to demean and tear down. Ideas I present I do not declare to be *good* or *perfect* merely *better* or *different*.

12 November 2008

Spurred on by Ramesh Ponnuru at NRO, talking about generalities in Mark Lilla's recent column on conservatism:

The rest of Lilla's column abounds with gross generalizations—"younger conservative intellectuals" apparently all, without exception, "mock the advice of Nobel Prize-winning economists and praise the financial acumen of plumbers and builders." This from a guy complaining about a lack of intellectual rigor. Physician heal thyself.

2 comments:

I'm actually in Los Angeles right now, taking the quarter at UCLA - glorious weather, beautiful campus and a rather enriching, intellectually stimulating environment - all these make for a pretty great time! Thanks for your recommendations that you offered a few months back, when I was still deliberating over where to go for my exchange in the US.

Harrison - Most welcome! And glad you have new digs. CA has much to recommend it, only requiring scads of self-discipline to study... believe me, even at the worst of times you still have decent climate and only the threat of the Big One to worry about.

I'm plugging along on blogger, just backing up posts once in awhile, and adding some of my homegrown fiction and other works which are more interesting at the moment than endlessly repeating myself on the basics here and at the party site. Still stuck in VA, most likely for the winter... which is necessary but not good.

The Commentary Policy

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Trying to save what thoughts I have in case my time for having them comes to an end. I keep many ways of looking at the world and from many perspectives, but they are each a part of a larger whole and reflect my thoughts and feelings.
Diabetic, cataleptic, naracoleptic, hyperlipidemia, cerebral atrophy, allergies and *still* glad to be alive. Founding and sole member of The Jacksonian Party. mail: ajacksonian at gmail dot com

What D&D Character Am I?

Alignment:Neutral Good A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do. He is devoted to helping others. He works with kings and magistrates but does not feel beholden to them. Neutral good is the best alignment you can be because it means doing what is good without bias for or against order. However, neutral good can be a dangerous alignment because because it advances mediocrity by limiting the actions of the truly capable.

Race:Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.

Class:Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard's strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.